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Oct. 4, 1872.]
THE VRIHATKATHA.
303
-literally the dialect of the goblins-and that it differs from its original only in the language and by & condensation of the too prolix narrative.
After this statement the Kathâpitha, or introduction to the work, gives the wonderful origin of the tale at great length. (Kath. I. 1-13I. 8) Siva, we are told, once narrated to Pârvati the marvellous history of the seven Vidyadhara Chakravartins. He was overheard by one of his attendants, Push, adanta, who communi- cated it to his wife Jaya, a servant of Pârvati. The latter again spread it amongst her fellows and the indiscretion of Pushpadanta soon became known to the divine pair. Parvati, filled with anger, then cursed Pashpadanta and condemned him, in punishment of his fault, to be born as a mortal. His brother Mâlyavân, who dared to intercede for him, received a like sentence. But when Pârvati saw Pushpadanta's wife, her faith ful attendant, overwhelmed by distress, she relented so far as to set a term to the effects of her curse. She decreed that, when Pushpadanta, on meeting a goblin or Paibâcha called Kâņa- bhati, in the Vindhyas, should remember the great tales and his former birth and should tell them to Kanabhäti, he should be delivered from his mortal body. Mályavân also should be allow- ed to return to heaven, when he had heard the Vsihatkathâs from Kâṇabhậti and had spread them on the earth. Agreeably to this order, Pushpadanta was born in Kausâmbi, as VararuchiKatyâyana, and became a great grammarian and the minister of Yogananda, the last of the Nandas. After an eventful life he retired into solitude and on a pilgrimage to the temple of Pârvati Vindhyavasini, he met Kâņabhâti in the forest. He remembered his former life and communicated to the Piśâcha the seven 'great tales.' Having accomplished this he re-obtained his celestial nature, according to Pârvati's prediction.
Mâlyavân, also, who in his human birth had become Gunadhya of Pratishthana and had served King Satavahanat as minister, came accompanied by his two papils Gunadeva and Nandideva, to the dwelling place of Kanabhati. He received from him the seven stories in the language of the Pisachas and wrote them down • Kathasaritsagara, ed. Brockhaus, I. 1. 8.
Vribatkathayil irasya samgrabam rachayamyabam and I. 1. 10.
Yatha mülam tathaivaitanna manîgapyatik rama/ granthavistarasankshepamátram bhasha cha vidyatell Compare for the last line Hall, Vásavadattá, Introd. p. 28.
+ Alias S'Atavihana or Alivahana. 1 Tábhyam saba cha kathalu tamaksaya (Lavidya ?]
in 100,000 Slokas each, with his own blood. By the advice of his pupils, he sent the whole to Satavahana, hoping that the king being a man of taste, might preserve and spread them. But that monarch rejected with disgust & work that was written in the language of the goblins and with blood. On receiving this news Gunadhya burnt six of his stories ; the seventh was preserved with difficulty through the entreaties of his pupils. King Satavahana, who accidentally learned that the recitation of the remaining book charmed even the beasts of the forest, repented of his former conduct, repaired to Guņâdhya's habitation and obtained the MS. of the remaiaing story. He studied it with the help of Gunadeva and Nandideva, and wrote the introduction, detailing its origin, likewise in the language of the Pisachas. The book then became one of the stories that are famed in the three worlds."
This account of the composition of Somadeva's original, which traces the story from Siva, through Vararuchi and Kâṇabhūti, to Guñadhya, his pupils and Satavahana, looks as if it were purely legendary. Its nature has led Professor H. H. Wilson, who first made known Somadeva's work by an analysis of its contents, Professor H. Brockhaus,|| the editor of the Kathâsaritsagara, and Professor Lassen, 1 to doubt Somadeva's assertion, that he worked up an older Prakrit poem. These three scholars are, on the contrary, of opinion that Somadeva collected various works of fiction and digested them into a harmonious whole. Their view was certainly defensible twenty or even ten years ago, when the number of Sanskrit works, generally accessible to European Sanskritists, was not very large. But it is no longer tenable since Dr. F. E. Hall collected, in the introduction to his Vasavadattâ,* a considerable mass of trustworthy evidence, which proves that a Vrihatkatha in the Paibâcha Prakritt existed, many centuries before Somadeva. The most important witnesses there adduced, are Dandi who mentions & Vpihatkatha composed in the Bhâtabhâshâ, in his Kâryâdarba, I. 38, and Subandhu who, in the Vasavadattá, speaks of a Vpihatkatha, divided into sections called Lambas,
satavahanas tasyah tadbhâshayavataram vaktum chakre kathâpitham.l Brockhaus, Kathd. I. 8. 87.
Collected Works III. 169 seq. | Kathdisaritsdgara, L p. viii.
Indische Alterth. III. 1084 & IV. 811. * p. 22-24. | Regarding the Pais'ache dialect, see Lassen, Instit Prakrit. Pp. 377 and 489,
